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Republicans blame Cooper for judicial redistricting confusion

The Senate voted along party lines Tuesday night to overturn a partial judicial redistricting bill in an apparent attempt to flex its political muscle at Gov. Roy Cooper. Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) told his colleagues it took Cooper 243 hours and 20 minutes to veto Senate Bill 757 and that he (Cooper) wanted to make sure he caused confusion for the election.

“I promise you, he knew the moment it passed the first chamber whether or not he was going to veto this bill,” Hise said. “But instead he wanted to create some chaos. … That’s the way this Governor likes to play, so we’re going to send the message back.”

That's right, they are accusing the Governor of following the law, which specifies how much time he has to sign, Veto, or allow a bill to become law without his signature. Make no mistake, those judicial candidates who are forced to refile know exactly who to blame, the meddlers in the General Assembly:

Cooper vetoed the bill because “legislative attempts to rig the courts by reducing the people’s vote hurts justice,” he wrote. “Piecemeal attempts to target judges create unnecessary confusion and show contempt for North Carolina’s judiciary,” the message states.

Democratic Leader Sen. Dan Blue drove that point home during a floor debate. He said he agreed with Sen. Dan Bishop (R-Mecklenburg), a main sponsor of the bill, that Superior Court districts in Mecklenburg County needed to be fixed, but he challenged him to find a problem in any of the other districts affected by SB 757.

“What he has done is put in play a process that’s going to slowly chip away at a system that had been put in place 50 years ago and had ended up being very successful — the District Court system of this state,” Blue said. “You talk about time; it took a dozen years to get that system perfected.”

Not only do Republicans "not" care about any disruptions to elections (or court schedules) they might cause, they are probably counting on such. The more difficult and inefficient they make the process, the easier they can justify stepping in and taking over the court system, which is what they really want to do.

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